A vote for the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a vote for the past

Just a week after Halloween theRepublican Party is still busy unveiling its annual parade of horrors. You remember them. The climate change deniers, the abstinence only crowd, the home schoolers, the self-loathing ex-gays, the ‘legitimate rape’ Neanderthals, the rapture ready end of the world is nigh crowd, the ‘rape is God's plan’ people.

They haven't gone away you know. This crowd is increasingly the GOP Base and Mitt Romney has pandered to them so long they'll be lining up for their payback on Election Day. Remember, a vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for every oily plutocrat or flat-earther he's pandered to for the past ten years. But more than that it's a vote for the anti-women, anti-gay, anti-science, anti-intellectual base of his increasingly fundamentalist party.

Obamahas his problems but he hasn't given the national stage to people who want to turn back the clock to the 19-century. Under Obama's watch we have lifted the ban on gay people serving in the military, we have seen him sign the Lilly Ledbetter Act to mandate women receive equal pay, and we have watched him lift a generation of hard working undocumented American born citizens out of the shadows. Obamahas also given us the Affordable Care Act which allows women preventative care exams without co-pays, free contraceptives, and an end to insurance companies charging women more for their insurance for the simple fact they are women.

It makes quite a contrast to the no way no how mob mentality of the GOP base. Mitt Romney has vowed that if elected he will withdraw his support for Planned Parenthood. Because what could be more cost cutting than preventing economically disadvantaged women access to lifesaving personal healthcare?

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Romney doesn't care, apparently. How else to explain selecting Paul Ryan as his running mate? A man who believes the option to have an abortion should not be made available to victims of rape or incest. Romney has himself said he wishes to see the overturn of Roe versus Wade, so can there be any doubt what his position is? He has already said he would be ‘delighted’ to sign a bill banning all abortions in the U.S.

If I was a woman I could not in good conscience vote for a ticket that would callously deny me these difficult options in times of personal crisis. But this is the party of Todd Akin, U.S. Representative for Missouri, who believes that women who have been raped have mysterious ‘ways’ of not conceiving. It's also the party of Richard Mourdock, who last week said he believed that pregnancies resulting from rape were what God intended. Mourdock is only one of at least a dozen GOP candidates for Senate who share his views that rape victims should not have access to abortion.

Remember that Mourdock said, ‘Even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that is something that God intended to happen.’ How he knows this he doesn't say, he just knows this, and that should be enough for you. ‘I believe God controls the universe,’ Mourdock told ABCNEWS, who asked if he thought pregnancies resulting from rape were God's plan. ‘I don't believe biology works in an uncontrolled fashion.’

If you think this kind of high-handed, holier than thou posturing isn't a problem then you won't feel uncomfortable voting for theGOP. But if you care about women, their individual health and happiness, you might want to think again.

This is also the year that Rush Limbaugh, the unofficial but acknowledged spokesperson for the GOP, made it quite clear what he thought of women who argued in favor of contraception in university health care coverage. He tried to silence Sandra Fluke in the time honored way by shaming her. He repeatedly called her a ‘slut’ and a ‘prostitute.’ He encouraged her to make a sex tape and post it to the internet ‘so we can all watch.’ He thought bullying her savagely would shut her up.

What he did not anticipate is that Fluke refused to be intimated by him. She understood he was making an attempt to silence not just her but all women who speak out, especially on issues relating to women’s health care. So she fought and won against a man who has said that, ‘Women still live longer than men because their lives are easier.’

It's as important to know what you're voting for as well as what you're voting against. This year the difference between the two presidential candidates is so pronounced that they might as well hail from different centuries. I really hope you'll decide to live and vote in this one.